Main menu

Monthly Archives: October 2010

Post navigation

If you were a bit confused at Azusa’s council meeting last night when the council, already having voted on a going with a special election for the Azusa Rock Quarry referendum, decided to vote again, I can clear that up.

During the break after the initial vote, I asked Mayor Joe Rocha why he had voted no on the original motion.

Was it because he disagreed with the date? The special election versus the March municipal election date? DId he prefer voting to rescind the development agreement as a council?

None of the above. Rocha was surprised at the question and realized he made a mistake. He then asked they could re-vote so he could be on record as voting in favor of the referendum’s special election.

That may be the question of the hour after we learned that Monterey Park’s former City Manager and Police Chief each pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in saved leave time when each left their positions.

Some have argued (via the comments section) that this is a mole hill being made into a mountain (a Scrooge McDuck mountain of coin, am I right?!).

There is merit to the argument that if a person doesn’t take their vacation time, they should be allowed to cash it in. They didn’t use it, instead worked and are entitled to the value of that benefit.

But those arguing that in this circumstance may be missing a vital point: Are city executives being given an exceeding large amount of leave time? And is that benefit a backhanded way of giving them additional pay when they are given more leave time then they will ever use?

Racking up a day of vacation each week of employment, as Jeffers was doing in his final year at Monterey Park, and having executives able to earn three months of time off a year seems excessive. Should city department directors, working on the public’s dime, be allowed to take three months off in a year? If the answer is no (as I assume most citizens would agree) then why give them the opportunity?

Finally, Jeffers’ current employer didn’t do themselves any favors in the story about their city manager’s former job.

Two council members didn’t know what Jeffers’ pay was when asked. Mayor Ken Herman seemed to be defending Jeffers’ actions in Monterey Park.

Councilman Terry Kent, in an e-mail to this newspaper, was upset at the way he was portrayed in the paper. Kent was at a wedding out of state and felt that should have been included in the story when describing why he couldn’t recite Jeffers’ salary.

The real question for the council is this: With this knowledge, what will they do?

The council, in the past, has stood by their city manager and often follow his suggestions. But will this force them to examine their city executive contracts for leave time? Or will they follow what Herman seemed to imply in the story that these benefits packages are comparable to other cities and Glendora must offer them to remain competitive in hiring top talent?

Does “because everybody else is doing it” make it right? Or does that mean there is a widespread problem? Answering that is best left to voters.

The biggest news from this weekend is this story about former Monterey Park City Manager and current Glendora City manager taking home nearly half a million dollars in leave time after he departed from Monterey Park in 2007. I will address this more in a later post.

Irwindale is drafting a new Environmental Impact Report for a material recovery facility planned for a site on the city’s border, but Baldwin Park officials are adamantly opposed to the project, they said.

“We’re going to do whatever we can both at our level, the state level and the federal level to prevent this pollution factory from being built adjacent to to Baldwin Park,” Baldwin Park Mayor Manuel Lozano said. “Irwindale has plenty of spaces in their area and they should consider that.”

A draft EIR for the project was completed in 2009, but a consultant hired by Baldwin Park to review the document said the report was inadequate and should be rewritten and redistributed.

“We’re in the process of drafting and recirculating the EIR, addressing the concerns of the stakeholders in the area,” said Irwindale Interim City Manager Sol Benudiz. “We want to make sure it’s as comprehensive as humanly possible.”

Trash hauler Athens Services would use the 17-acre site at Live Oak Avenue and Arrow Highway in Irwindale to sort recyclables from garbage before sending the remaining trash to a landfill.

Baldwin Park officials are concerned about the environmental implications, including air quality issues, that the facility may present for its residents.

The dubi-ous law (see what I did there?) has been debated to the point where most people probably can’t make heads or tails of it. I think people were less paranoid about the Large Hadron Collider ending the world than Prop. 19.

City staff is asking council to to oppose Prop. 19 on the grounds that it is a public safety risk and the law itself is poorly constructed.

While researching this story comparing a referendum in Azusa of Vulcan Materials Co.’s new amended mining plan versus Rosemead residents earlier failed attempt to stop a Wal-Mart in the city, there were some other interesting parallels that I stumbled across.

Community groups filed lawsuits against the Wal-Mart projects’ environmental impact report for being incomplete, much like Duarte’s lawsuit against the Azusa Rock Quarry plan’s EIR, claiming it is insufficient.

A judge agreed that Wal-mart’s EIR was incomplete, but the ruling only stalled the project.

What I found most interesting was the Rosemead council came under fire for having an emergency vote to grant Wal-Mart a certificate of occupancy, something opponents said violated the Ralph M. Brown Act’s open meeting laws.

Azusa is facing similar claims after an urgency vote to reconsider the mining plan. The council had originally voted against it, but later voted to bring it back for a second vote at a council meeting without putting the item on the agenda. Duarte’s lawsuit includes alleging Azusa violated the Brown Act.

In Rosemead, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office faulted the council, but did not demand corrective action because the Wal-Mart was already built and open.

Will Azusa’s council face the same fate? And, if so, what are the potential implications?

Before we get into week-in-review, I want to take this time to put Chargers’ fans on blast.

I am not a Raiders fan by any means, nor am I am Charger’s hater. In fact, nine times out of ten, I root for the Bolts over those norther demons. But this weekend all I heard from Chargers’ fans was disrespect and comments about how Sunday’s game was nothing more than a practice game. I can’t say how happy it makes me when someone talks trash, takes a team lightly, and makes ludacris claims only to have them get beat. Best thing that happens in sports. You know that movie ‘Little Giants‘? Underdogs win sometimes, that is why they even have the word underdog. Let that be a lesson to those San Diegans who thought they had a stats padding day set up for them.

If that is the case, enough said. They broke the law and that’s that, right? The owners and partners with the dispensaries deny police claims, but that will play out in court.

But this begs the larger question, with something as potentially profitable as marijuana and the ongoing issues with dispensaries – including the popularity of opening them – to avoid these problems, why not just have this administered by the state or hospitals to avoid issues of free market business meddling with the law? Is this a viable option? Maybe I’m crazy, and if I am, I’ll be happy to hear why.